[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 51 (Wednesday, April 14, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E656]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    DAN QUAYLE: A HOOSIER CANDIDATE

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                          HON. MARK E. SOUDER

                               of indiana

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, April 14, 1999

  Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, today is a proud day for Northeast Indiana. 
One of our own, former Vice President Dan Quayle came home to 
Huntington to announce his campaign for President of the United States.
  In Huntington, we are proud of the Dan Quayle Museum, the only museum 
in the United States devoted to Vice Presidents. In Indiana, we have 
had many Vice Presidents--in addition to Dan Quayle, Thomas Marshall, 
Thomas Hendricks, Charles Fairbanks, and Schuyler Colfax are Hoosier 
Vice Presidents.
  While William Henry Harrison, who was a Territorial Governor based in 
Vincennes before Indiana was a state; and his cousin Benjamin Harrison, 
who lived in Indianapolis at the time of his election. And there's 
Abraham Lincoln. We Hoosiers say that Indiana made Lincoln and then 
Lincoln made Illinois.
  But Dan Quayle will be our first really Hoosier President. And I'm 
proud he's from my district, and I'm honored to hold the same 
congressional seat he did.
  My friend Mike Perkins wrote the following article in the Ft. Wayne 
Journal-Gazette that summarizes our feelings.

          [From the Ft. Wayne Journal-Gazette, April 11, 1999]

                       Why Quayle Always Returns

                           (By Mike Perkins)

       A few minutes after noon Wednesday, Dan Quayle will step to 
     the microphone in a packed gymnasium at Huntington North High 
     School and make history by announcing he is a candidate for 
     president of the United States.
       It will be a big story on a national basis and a very big 
     story for the small town of Huntington, the place Dan Quayle 
     still considers his hometown.
       As it first did in the summer of 1988, the national media 
     spotlight will again fall on the community. It will focus on 
     the place, the people and the attitudes that helped shape Dan 
     Quayle. That's one of the reasons he's coming back here on 
     such an important day in his life.
       While we've hardly used to such attention, it can't be 
     quite as bewildering as it was in August 1988, when 
     Huntington became, for a day or two, the center of the 
     political universe.
       When George Bush surprised nearly everyone by naming Dan 
     Quayle his running mate on the Republican ticket, editors, 
     producers and reporters everywhere scrambled to find 
     Huntington on their Indiana maps. There they hoped to find 
     people who could help them unravel the mystery of just who 
     this Quayle fellow was.
       What the reporters discovered when they got here was that 
     Dan Quayle was anything but a mystery to the people of 
     Huntington. His family had lived here for years. He'd 
     graduated from high school here, spent a few summers at home 
     during college, then moved back to Huntington with his wife, 
     Marilyn, after law school. He went to work at his family's 
     newspaper--where I am employed--and he and Marilyn even hung 
     out a Quayle & Quayle law shingle on the second floor of the 
     newspaper building. They bought a house, settled in and began 
     a family. They made friends they're still on a first-name 
     basis with. Small-town life agreed with them.
       As did big-time politics.
       The Quayles moved from Huntington not long after Dan Quayle 
     took his oath as a member of the House of Representatives in 
     1977. The Quayles have not spent more than a few days at a 
     time in Huntington since then. Dan Quayle last voted at his 
     Huntington Precinct 1A polling place in 1992. He has returned 
     a few times since for ceremonies and fund-raisers.
       It is significant that Dan Quayle, who lives in Phoenix 
     after calling Indianapolis home, chooses to return to 
     Huntington for Wednesday's announcement. There's no strategic 
     reason to do so. He does not need to work against a rural 
     Midwest backdrop; he'll be spending much of the coming year 
     in towns smaller than Huntington as he stumps through Iowa. 
     He does not need to curry votes; Huntington County and all of 
     Indiana have been kind to him that way over the years, and 
     the Republican nomination should be decided by the time the 
     Indiana primary rolls around in May 2000.
       Dan Quayle is coming back to Huntington because his 
     successful journeys always seem to start from here. In 1976, 
     as a political unknown, he launched his first campaign for 
     Congress from the Huntington College student union. He 
     returned there in 1980 to announce his ambitions for the 
     Senate. He and George Bush began their quest for the White 
     House in 1988 from the south steps of the Huntington County 
     Courthouse.
       Dan Quayle was not supposed to have a prayer against the 
     popular J. Edward Roush in 1976. But he won. Birch Bayh was 
     thought to be all but unbeatable when the 1980 campaign 
     began. Quayle beat him. George Bush had to overcome Michael 
     Dukakis' early lead while Dan Quayle stood up under a 
     withering media barrage in the fateful first weeks of the 
     1988 campaign. And they won.
       Quayle is not the early favorite for the Republican 
     nomination in 2000. Sound familiar?
       Dan Quayle knows he can expect a warm reception from the 
     people in his hometown. Community pride in having sent a 
     congressman, senator, then vice president into the political 
     arena transcends party affiliation for most people in 
     Huntington County. Even those who disagree with Dan Quayle's 
     politics can admire the man behind the issues and the way he 
     reflects their values and their beliefs.
       In large part Wednesday's rally will be a local production. 
     Hundreds of volunteers have been mobilized. Work has been 
     under way for weeks. The person at the eye of the 
     organizational hurricane is Marj Hiner, co-owner of a 
     Huntington trucking company. She has been a volunteer for Dan 
     Quayle since his earliest House campaigns and she passed her 
     trial by fire when she helped put together the 1988 Bush-
     Quayle rally on three days' notice.
       Quayle knows Hiner and the Huntington County people she has 
     enlisted to help. He trust them to play a pivotal role in a 
     watershed event in his political career. Quayle's 
     friendships, as well as his roots, run deep here.
       It's impossible to know where Dan Quayle's personal journey 
     will take him in the months and year to come.
       In political terms he's still a young man, likely to be a 
     force in the Republican Party for many years to come. His 
     path might not often lead him back to Huntington, but when he 
     does return he'll be welcomed with kind words and 
     understanding hearts.
       You shouldn't expect anything less when you come home.

       

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